


we're far too young to die

by Asterin



Series: Hamilton Medieval AU - aka hamilton, but in a castle [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: (see the notes if you want specifics), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Freeform, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, a very gay bastard orphan, and a very gay prince, but i figured it's safer, it's only a very very small mention, things are happy until they're not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 12:03:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14568627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asterin/pseuds/Asterin
Summary: Looking back, Alex can't remember when it started.But, oh, he knows how it ends.





	we're far too young to die

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nebulae_unravelling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nebulae_unravelling/gifts).



> Implied/Referenced Abuse is a mention of Alex being hit and yelled at during early days as an apprentice.
> 
> Title is from Panic! at the Disco's song "Far Too Young To Die", which was, incidentally, the inspiration for this fic.

Looking back, Alex can't remember when it started.

He remembers so much, often too much, and maybe the memory of the start of this thing with John – maybe it got lost in the flood. He remembers the rest, though, all the important parts.

After all, he thinks, in between weary eyes and late nights and aching bones, the beginning doesn't matter. Not when he knows how it ends.

In the night's darkest hours, his soul stretched tight across the skies, Alex shivers in the cold emptiness of his chamber and he remembers. What he remembers is this:

**BEFORE**

The smell of smoke. God, it's nothing like back home, nothing like in his village – the wood they burn here must be different. He can taste the ash on his tongue.

His legs burn. For a moment, he entertains the thought that they're on fire too, like the hearths and the furnaces and the torches of the city ahead. If he had legs of fire, what would he do?

There are colours in the sky, the oranges and pinks and purples of the dusk; the red and gold of the flags on the turrets; the blue cloaks of the guards ahead.

And the noise. Laughter, cheering, grunting, drunken shouting, the whining of a baby somewhere distant, the clatter of pots and the gallop of horses and the his own heavy breathing, misting in the air.

Alex is just shy of seventeen. He's never left home before. His mother died five years ago.

It's with her image in his mind that he taught himself to read, curled over the bible in his village church. The only boy in his village who could read. The only boy who could write.

And oh, did he write.

When the king caught word, he sent for him, because his scholars were all ancient and slowly forgetting and he needed someone fresh and young with a will to learn.

Knowledge is power, Alex's mother had told him. With knowledge you can conquer the world.

All Alex wants is to learn.

 

In the castle, he's not special. He doesn't know why he thought he would be. There are other young men, women too, who are bright and promising, and not bastards or orphans like he is.

He has to learn quick, he finds, after the first night. He has to know when to stay out of the way and when to speak up. He's never been good at that.

The young man he shares a room with, Burr, he calls himself – he tells Alex to talk less.

_Talk less, smile more_ , but Alex doesn't really think that's gotten Burr all that far, so he doesn't bother. He gets hit, sometimes, or yelled down, but his words are golden where his silence isn't and it doesn't take long for the older scholars to see their future in his eyes, in the set of his jaw, the ink on his clothes.

Alex hears them whispering, when he wanders the castle – _here is a boy who is willing to_ work _for it._

By the end of the first month, his meals get better. People stop yelling and start listening.

He rises up.

~*~

He meets the king in the second month. He had hoped to meet him earlier, and word around the castle said that had been His Majesty's intention, but the there was war brewing and things were complicated and Alex wasn't a priority. That's fine. He never has been.

The king is overwhelming.

There is a throne of gold and cloak of red, the glistening colours of the jewels on his crown, the powerful stance of a god – and yet it's clear from the way he smiles and claps Alex on the shoulder that he is very much human.

Alex doesn't know if that's reassuring or not.

He likes the king. There's an immediate sense of belonging and he knows he's not enough yet to stand beside the man but one day – o _ne day_ – he will be.

Regardless, the king's friendly reception of Alex sends a message to everyone in the room – soldiers and servants and lesser nobles. _This is a boy who is to be treated well_. Alex catches sight of Burr behind a line of guards at the door, sees the resentment, the longing in his eyes, and looks away. Guilt and pride twist together in his heart. Alex deserves this, but in many ways, so does Burr.

 

Then the door behind the throne flies open, the prince strides in and Alex's heart stops.

He's- perfect. That's all there is to it; this young man, built of liquid confidence, the world at his feet, smiling a smile of gold at the court, dipping a cheery half-bow to his father. His hair manages to be messy in a way that isn't, stray curls framing his face, spilling past his shoulders. The golden crown looks as much a part of him as the almost rebellious set to his jaw, and oh, god, his eyes. Alex is weak.

He hesitates a second too long, then remembers himself and drops to one knee, shaking.

This isn't the beginning, but sometimes he finds comfort in pretending it is.

The prince laughs – a joyous, bubbling laughter – and sings out into the room. “ _Rise_ up!”

The room rises for him. The king rolls his eyes. Alex meets the prince's gaze and quivers at how he's looked up and down, at that shining smile softening for him.

“My son,” the king says, “This is our newest scholar's apprentice. I trust you'll keep him in mind.” There is another eye-roll somewhere in there, but the room shifts, and the prince's eyes remain on Alex. “I trust I will.” All is still. Burr coughs, loudly. Alex swallows.

 

He is dismissed shortly after. The evening is winding down then, and Alex has no duties left of the day but for those of his own decision. There are books waiting for him at his desk in the library, a candle with still enough wax to last him hours. Nights of studying and writing and learning have left their marks on him already – what harm is there in making them darker?

Moving through the castle is easier now, at least in the areas he is allowed to be, and it is no surprise that he passes servants and apprentices and others on his way. The surprise is when he turns a dark corner in the scholar's passage and nearly falls into the prince.

For a moment there is nothing. Both young men catch their balance and watch each other.

Then the prince starts to laugh. “There you are!” he says. As Alex stares, bemused, he takes off his crown, tossing it carelessly to his left hand, and holds out his right for Alex to shake. “I'm John.”

Alex grasps his warm palm, feels callouses against his fingers, and smiles. “Alex,” he says.

He's not sure what's happening, or what this is; shaking hands with the crownless prince in an empty corridor, but oh, _wow_. Now that they're standing face-to-face, on equal ground, the lacquer of royalty is worn away and John is freckles and dimples and a smile that's slightly crooked in a charmingly boyish way and Alex is melting.

The beginning is still months away, but Alex feels the tug of its possibility as John throws a careless arm over his shoulders, just for a moment. Alex knows, then and there, that he would do anything for this young man.

The prince puts his crown back. Winks. Bids Alex goodnight.

Alex falls back against the wall and shuts his eyes and just _breathes._

 

**AFTER**

Somehow that blossoms into _this_.

Alex is twenty-five. He has his own room now, his own space. He is a scholar of his own right, recognised by the king as being among the best and brightest.

The castle feels small enough to manage now, enough like home that he no longer wakes with a chest tight with longing for his village.

Every day is a day of learning. Some nights, he stays up for hours with red eyes and ink-stained hands, back protesting from hours leaning over his desk, only stopping when his candle burns down to nothing. Other nights, there is a knock at his door and lips pursing to blow out his candle and warm arms around him and a crown abandoned atop his papers. Sometimes they talk, or sneak out into the night. Sometimes they lie tangled together on Alex's narrow bed until dawn.

It's almost heartbreaking, the love they share, Alex and John. Achingly beautiful.

 

John's breath is warm on Alex's neck. The coarse blanket barely covers both of them, but they make it work, Alex pressed back against the stone wall, John curled around him. There's a niggling sadness in the knowledge that John will have to leave soon – before dawn tonight, he had said. He hadn't explained why and Alex hadn't asked. Royal business, a change of guard, perhaps.

John murmurs something into his shoulder, the words blurring in his unbound hair. “I have to duel at dawn,” he says, but Alex doesn't hear. He tightens his grip around John's shoulders, chasing the words. “What did you say?”

John laughs against his skin, licks a playful stripe along the shell of Alex's ear. “I said I love you.”

There had been more syllables than that, but in that moment, with John's weight against him and John's curls tickling his nose, Alex can't bring himself to care. “And I you,” he whispers.

He falls asleep, curled in the safety of John's arms, John's warmth surrounding him.

John strokes his hair as he drifts, lets his eyes fall half-shut as he stares up at the blackness of the ceiling. Hours tick by and John does not sleep.

Alex doesn't stir when he finally slips away.

~*~

Alex wakes with the sun.

The first thing he notices is how _cold_ he is. There's a distinct sense of something lacking, even though he is not yet conscious enough to understand what.

He opens his eyes.

The shutters mustn't have been closed properly last night as they have fallen open, letting in streams of pale sunlight.

He squints.

It's clear, then, as his brain catches up with his body, that John has already gone. Of course he has. He said he would.

Alex kicks the blanket away from his legs and sits up, stretching his arms towards the light, relishing the way his neck cracks, tension releasing. He could still sleep, he thinks, but he doesn't lie back down. If only John could have stayed longer. Alex gently mourns his absence, and toys with the idea of tramping through the castle to find him for a quick hug. Just one.

But there'll be another night. A lifetime, eventually, once the kingdom passes onto John.

The king is close to retiring, Alex knows. It won't be long now.

He smiles, despite the weariness and his aching limbs and the cold. Each new day is a day closer to that future.

 

Two things happen then.

One. He swings his legs off the edge of the bed.

Two. He notices the crown.

It glitters pink and gold in the dawn light, sitting neglected where John left it last night. Alex fights down a surge of anxiety. John has never left his crown before.

Alex can already hear the gossip – _did you hear, the prince was seen leaving the scholar's wing without his crown?_ John had always been so aware of the risks, had always made sure to leave before anyone was awake, so what would possess him to leave his crown now?

There's a possibility that he simply forgot, but John is far from absentminded. Alex feels nauseous.

The sight of the crown in the light is so _wrong_. He wonders, briefly, if he's somehow woken in a parallel world where John would be careless enough to leave it here.

His legs take him to his desk, unbidden, and it is then that he notices that the crown is resting atop not just his work from the evening before, but a folded scrap of parchment, tucked under the rim.

It's not his.

The nausea rises until he feels the world fade out of focus. His body insists that there is something very wrong with this, but his mind can't seem to puzzle out what. _You should sit down_ , it tells him instead.

He takes the crown and the parchment and stumbles back to sit on the edge of the bed.

With the crown resting heavily on his knees and his heart struggling to breathe, he unfolds the note.

It's nothing fancy, only a handful of words in John's hurried scrawl.

_I doubt I'll be alive when you read this._

_I'm sorry._

_I love you._

Everything stops.

In his mind, he can hear John's muffled whisper, the brush of lips against his skin. He can almost make out the words.

No, he thinks.

Don't let it be true.

He shivers. The writing blurs.

His voice bursts through quivering lips. “ _Please_.”

The universe doesn't hear.

 

**END**

The day has blossomed into warmth and sun when they announce it. The stone almost alive under Alex's touch as he wanders the castle but every room is cold to him.

The king's face is haggard and grey. The servants hang heavy black drapes on every window in the castle. The church bells toll. Alex contemplates burning the city to the ground.

He thinks of the chest under his bed, hundreds and hundreds of love letters that he never gave to John, always swore he would, one day, when John was king and they could live as they wished.

How many more would he write, now that John was gone? How much more ink would he spill, how many more pages would he dedicate to this love, this love that was whole and rich and full just a handful of hours ago?

Looking back, Alex can't remember when it started.

But, oh, he knows how it ends.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday, mate!!
> 
> (also to anyone who's also reading my ongoing Merlin fic - yes, I am still working on that. I swear. There'll be more soon)
> 
> (My tumblr: [llariya](https://llariya.tumblr.com))


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